red balloons and yellow canaries
by dotRHEA
Summary: - he holds onto the string to his past like he hopes that Hibird will find its way back home. Hibari/oc


**Title**: red balloons and yellow canaries

**Summary**: - he holds onto the string to his past like he hopes that Hibird will find its way back home. Hibari/oc

**Genre**: friendship, hurt/comfort

**Disclaimer**: I do not own KHR

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><p>"I'll bite you to death."<p>

The words slip off his tongue like a song as he whips out his tonfas in an angry grace; the delinquents only stagger backwards in fear before letting out an undignified squeak and running the opposite direction. He watches silently as their backs grow smaller and smaller before they finally stop at a streetlight and disappear into the oncoming crowd.

He doesn't say a word as he climbs onto his motorcycle, silently discarding his tonfas and slipping on the ebony helmet. The crumpled bouquet doesn't go unnoticed as he readjusts his grip on the bike, revving the engine and speeds down the street. He takes a detour and heads uphill where the Namimori temple lays, the petals of a crimson flower flying past him the more he speeds down the corners.

Hibari Kyoya does not love.

Hibari Kyoya does not _need_love.

But he makes an exception as he zooms past Kusakabe who's hauling a bag of bird feed down the street, his yellow canary singing the school anthem not far behind him. He'll do anything for that bird, he thinks in the far reaches of his mind, not realizing how much of an herbivore he sounded like in his head. The wind whips at him as he lets out a sigh in his helmet, it took him a while to get used to but never has the skylark felt so _free_ without restrictions. He snaps out of his thoughts though before he turns the quick trip into a joyride for his own entertainment.

He slows down near the steps of the temple but does not stop until he goes further down the road and into an old forgotten forest path, where an old broken tree house lay before a stone grave.

The prefect slips off his bike then, leaning it against the truck of an old tree and carelessly throws the bouquet down onto the grave, only daring to stare at it for a moment longer before turning his attention to the fallen tree house.

How many years has it been now? Five? Six? Hibari Kyoya doesn't care to remember as his attention drifts to the faded red balloons decorating the rotten tree house. If he remembered correctly, he left a brand new bag of party balloons here once, but it doesn't do the old thing before him any justice.

He forces himself to sit down, his eyes heavy for sleep and the silent lull of the forest only beckons to him more. Lying down on the grassy ground, he stares at the blue blue sky, counting as fluffy clouds pass him by without a care in the world.

One blink.

Two blink.

Three blink.

And he falls asleep.

...

Her name is Morino Namie, a sickly girl he meets when he goes to visit his grandfather in the hospital. He's only three then, a young herbivore who was clutching onto his mother's hand tightly as he stares at the red balloons his mother tied onto his wrist childishly. He doesn't have a care in the world as his mother drags him down the hospital halls and leaves him in a big area with comfy chairs and tables and a TV while she went to check up on her father.

"I've never seen that before, what is it?" are the first words she says to him, as he turns his attention to the girl in front of him, a pale finger pointing up.

"They're balloons. Do you want one?" the girl nods eagerly, testing the new word on her tongue as he unties the knot his mother made and hands the string to her. He's about to tie it around her wrist when she shakes her head and lefts the opposite hand, "daddy said I'm not allowed to put anything close to my hospital bracelet..."

He stares at her curiously then, watching as the girl tried to grab the balloon and would start giggling every time it slipped past her fingers. She looked exactly like him, he thought silently. Except her eyes are a tad bit bigger and not as scary looking as his.

"What color is it?" She asks, randomly.

"Red."

"Daddy says my name is Morino Namie, what's your name?"

"Hibari Kyoya."

...

His nickname for her was Namimori, a strange pet name that stuck for years to come only for teasing purposes. He lived in Otobe then, with his mother and her family. She was the only person who would willingly to hang out with him, the rest of his classmates never bothered with him; saying that he looked too scary and that he would kick sand at you if you got him mad.

He visits the hospital frequently- its either her health or the fights he finds himself in that causes him to do so, but by the time they're in third grade, he realizes that she's almost never at home and presumes that she moved into the hospital permanently.

"We learnt how to make paper cranes today," he mutters to himself as he tosses her a bag of balloons, his wooden pair of tonfas clicks against his thigh as he sits down beside her bed. She lets out a wide grin as she tears it open and starts stretching the red inflatable bag of plastic.

"Oh yeah?" she asks, unimpressed in that croaky voice of hers, brushing her dark hair behind her ear. The nurses once told him that she was bond to lose her voice soon, apparently her voice box collapsed or something, he never listened.

A part of him notices that her hair grew a bit longer since the last time he saw her as she stares at him indifferently, causing a cherry red blush to form on his cheeks

"Yeah... and math too..." she isn't listening anymore as she starts blowing the balloons, starting their usual routine.

Soon the small hospital room is filled with an array of colorful balloons and two breathless and light headed children.

...

By the time Hibari is in fifth grade, Morino's voice is already gone and in addition to school, he chooses to stay behind in the hospital to learn sign language with the girl. The only gratitude she gives him is that wide smile of hers but to him it's enough as long as she's happy.

He takes her out once, outside the hospital and into an old pet shop around the corner. She automatically gets attached to the canaries and it takes him half an hour to drag her back to the hospital before they get in trouble.

_When I die,_ she signs to him as they walk back in silence; _I want to be a canary. So I can sing to you every time I see you._

He only scoffs it off and whispers halfheartedly to himself as he watches her parents drag her off, "don't say things like that."

...

When his grandfather introduces to him the concept of herbivores and carnivores, he automatically thinks that Morino is an omnivore or maybe helpless breed of omni-herbivore.

The old man only rolls his eyes at his grandson's childish antics as he reminds him of his duty to continue on with his family's legacy. Whatever that meant.

He doesn't think twice however, when the senior strikes him with a bamboo sword. A sort of blood lust replaces his adrenaline for once as he counters the bamboo sword with his wooden tonfas.

...

In the summer of fifth grade, her parents take them out to some random forest where they have a surprise waiting for them. It's a two hour walk away from the old hospital but they insist that the two of them should be blindfolded while they walk their way up the hill.

The first thing Namimori does, he remembers when they were allowed to take the blindfolds off was to tackle her parents; making small throaty puppy noises with tears in her eyes. He just stands there and stares at the tree house with a calculating glance- in his young mind, he's already mentally made it his lair, his castle where he was the carnivore king and Namimori was his omni-herbivore queen.

There's already a smirk on his face when he turns around to Namie moving her hands like a whirlwind.

_Needs more balloons._

...

It's the middle of summer when she decides to confess something to Hibari. They're sitting in their 'throne room'; face to face and she has a grim look on her face as she moves her hands in front of her. Grabbing his attention immediately.

_The doctor said that it's moving. _She signs, and looks at him with her big beady eyes, _I'm going to have surgery tomorrow but it might not work_

He doesn't know what to do but just sit there, staring at her with a scowl on his face, letting out a quiet hum as he moves his own hands, _it_ _will._

"Hibarin," it's been such a long time since she used that voiceless throaty whisper of hers (not to mention that dreaded nickname), it almost startles him out of his bean bag as he stares at her with wide eyes. Shaking his head lightly, "you're my... best friend"

...

The place is a mess when his mom finally finds him, all the balloons had burst during the storm and there was a huge crack in the wooden flooring. It wouldn't be long until the tree house collapses.

"Kyoya... we're going to move." she whispers as she sits down next to him but he doesn't hear her because his sobs are too loud and weak sounding in the silence. There's a broken picture frame lying in front of him as he tries his best not to look at it as he recalls her last sign to him before the doctors came to take him away.

_Canary_

...

He hates the new town his mom takes him too; there are too many herbivores inhabiting the place and the whole town makes him feel too vulnerable. They move into her namesake and he hates it here in Namimori until he receives a package in the mail for his thirteenth birthday.

_Dear Hibari Kyoya,_

_She would've wanted you to have it. _

_Happy birthday,_

_Take care of yourself now._

He opens to the middle of the journal and his eyes immediately catch something written in one of the paragraphs. It's definitely her printing because he knows that it's impossible to have penmanship uglier than hers.

"_Today while Hibarin was at school, I looked around on the internet and found out there was a junior high school close by, probably three stops away. I want to go to Nami-chu with Kyoya, to Namimori."_

He swears he'll protect this town then as he bites his lip, frowning as he heads out the door with his tonfas.

He doesn't realize he's biting his lip until he feels something streaming down his chin as he stands in the middle of a fight, the delinquents coming at him like the cackles of lightning that day years ago.

...

That herbivore will die.

He's far from pissed as he slouches against the wall, he stopped feeling the the pain ages ago and now he was just plain angry.

_The pathetic herbivore ruined my uniform._

Hibari hears a squeaky noise then, it sounds like a chirp at first until he releases that it's a song and his cell phone is dropped from who knows where into his lap.

He looks up to see a small yellow bird flying innocently in the air in front of him, chirping in that high pitch cry that is starting to hurt his ears. The more he watches the bird, the more he can't stop thinking about _Morino Namie._

Finally he picks up his cell phone, presses a few buttons and lets the hushed voices of the Disciplinary Committee fill the room. Sighing in contempt despite himself as the bird- the canary tries to join in but fails every time. He presses the repeat button just for its sake as he leans his head back and let's himself gives in to sleep and dreams about two kids singing songs in an empty hospital room filled with red red balloons.

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><p><strong>This has been lying around in my inbox for a while now so I decided to just finish it. I hope you guys liked it.<strong>

**Review!**


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